Global warming one big hoax?

Definitely, but quoting the Bible Out of Context, is what most people do!! This is especially true of people who attack it!!

Corwin said:

Definitely, but quoting the Bible Out of Context, is what most people do!! This is especially true of people who attack it!!

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I would argue that the so-called 'religious right' attack the Bible as much with their use of it as some sort of 'mystical hammer of justice' as those who perform frontal attacks on it.

I attack the Bible, and say it is a bunch of scrolls telling fictional fables based upon scattered historical events, without ever quoting anything from it.

And yes, I have read it numerous times, each reading more perplexing than the previous reading. There is nothing "truthful" in the Holy Bible. Rather, the entire group of scrolls is completely obscure, mythological-based, nonsensical fable that can be interpreted in endless variation, enough to create 1000 different religious cults that bear "witness" to a Hebrew God and/or to some guy named Jesus that was crueling disposed by Roman authorities.

Bunch of hogwash. The world would be better if they realize that its all bullshit.

Try to live by the bible-- literally and you will find it is impossible. Sections on what your are supposed to do contradict each other repeatedly. It reflects human nature which is self contradictory. Forget about interpretation for a moment and try to literally follow what it says. Even the simple parts become complicated.

Corwin said:

Unfortunately, your reading of the Bible is flawed. I lecture in Hermeneutics and unless you follow certain principles (which you do not), you can make the Bible say anything (which you attempt to do)!! You make sweeping statements that have not been substantiated. You also need to examine the Bible using its original languages (which I do), rather than translations which frequently don't give the full meaning, or intent of the original!!

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So I am simply reading it all wrong then. I do not have high opinions of myself but my personal IQ level is 133. IQ is by no means the key to do everything right but it helps when it comes to putting things together. If I after an excess study of the content of this book after a previous life within christianity are still not able to read this book the "right" way, who does? You? Bush?

Would you need the same "please do not read this the wrong way" warning sticker on the book of Universal declaration of human rights? I consider it to be an accurate document of what the majority of the western civilization agree to be good ethic behavior. It's straight forward, easy to read and there's no way people regardless of age of academic level would "read it wrong". Would you disagree with it's content? I know the christian bible does, including the ten commandments.

I have had my share of the earliest bibles, including the lost gospels. A noteworthy European "upgrade" after the 2nd world war was to rewrite 2 Samuel 12:31. In the new bibles, David put his prisoners under forced labour. In the earlier versions, he burns them in great ovens. The stuff I talked about earlier though have stayed the same from the earliest bible up to now.

Corwin said:

Unfortunately, your reading of the Bible is flawed. I lecture in Hermeneutics and unless you follow certain principles (which you do not), you can make the Bible say anything (which you attempt to do)!! You make sweeping statements that have not been substantiated. You also need to examine the Bible using its original languages (which I do), rather than translations which frequently don't give the full meaning, or intent of the original!!

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Original lauguages, you mean aichent hebrew? My religionteacher once said that the reason cristians is so against homosexuality, the "you shall not go to bed with other men the way you go to bed with women" is in fact a misstranslation, and that the word for women originally meant something more in the line of female prostitute. Meaning that homosexuality in itself is not wrong, buying sex is though. I just thought it made sence since I can't see what cristians could have against homosexuality in itself (apart from the fact that it's not something most pepole is. A bit like being black, so to speak. Cristianity has nothing against being black afaik). I just thought you'd might know more of this, if you know hebrew.

What's off topic?

Übereil

Global warming :

I believe that it's happening. I also believe that it doesn't matter if it's caused by humans or not. Like some other people said here before me: Reducing pollution will help everyone, I was in Shanghai for vacations and I can tell you that there's a constant cloud on the city. It's hard to see far away, no matter where you look and it's becoming like this in a lot of big cities. Pollution also causes many respiratory illnesses and it's not good for the nature as rain becomes sour ((zure regen in Dutch, I'm not sure it's sour in English), acid rain maybe ?). This hurts everyone. So stopping with the pollution will help everyone in the long run.

Alternative energy as we know it also has a lot of disadvantages. Examples :
-Ethanol based fuel costs a lot more to produce than regular fuel and it uses up other resources instead. Yes it reduces pollution, but it makes up for it in other areas.
-Windpower is again good to stop emmisions from Coal-based plants and sutff like that, but depending on where you put the mills and you need a lot more than one to produce enough energy. This means taking away valuable land from people or places where either something else was there or someone else. Birds also die because of the mills.
-Nuclear Power = Nuclear waste, other than that it gives a lot of power. It would be good to send all the waste into space since space is infinite anyway

So now the question, I believe, is : Do we invest in finding newer power/energy-producing technologies or do we invest in making the technolologies we already have better ?


Evolution - Creationism:

I don't understand why people can't accept both theories ?
Isn't it possible a greater being created the concept of evolution ?
Isn't it possible the greater being made the big bang in the first place and that it slowly but surely the human race was born through evolution ?

Theology - Bible :

First off, I believe translations are always off, even by a bit. Germans here should know as lots of series are dubbed in German, like Friends,...
Yes it's still funny, but it's not the same as the original. I prefer watching something in its original language as I prefer reading something in its original language...

With the Bible I believe it's the same thing. I'm not literate enough to understand the Bible in Ancient Hebrew, but what I do know is that it's not meant to be taken literally. IF it were everyone would be dead by now, since so many laws are punishable by dead.
I believe it's more of a book on how to behave, a book of ethics. Also many western societies have developed their laws according or following the Scriptures and its laws.
However it is a question of belief, of faith if you wish to believe in everything that happened in the book.


JemyM :
Do you mind telling me where you got the information about the bibel being written in 650BC ? and everything you said about the history of the bible ?
Because a lot of what I've heard and read suggests that the Bible is as close to an historic book of the periods written about in that time.

Also, as a side note, for believers it doesn't matter if traces of the Hebrew people haven't been found in the desert since it could easily have been god who destroyed all evidence of the exodus.

JemyM said:

So I am simply reading it all wrong then. I do not have high opinions of myself but my personal IQ level is 133. IQ is by no means the key to do everything right but it helps when it comes to putting things together. If I after an excess study of the content of this book after a previous life within christianity are still not able to read this book the "right" way, who does? You? Bush?

Would you need the same "please do not read this the wrong way" warning sticker on the book of Universal declaration of human rights? I consider it to be an accurate document of what the majority of the western civilization agree to be good ethic behavior. It's straight forward, easy to read and there's no way people regardless of age of academic level would "read it wrong". Would you disagree with it's content? I know the christian bible does, including the ten commandments.

I have had my share of the earliest bibles, including the lost gospels. A noteworthy European "upgrade" after the 2nd world war was to rewrite 2 Samuel 12:31. In the new bibles, David put his prisoners under forced labour. In the earlier versions, he burns them in great ovens. The stuff I talked about earlier though have stayed the same from the earliest bible up to now.

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JennyM you're reading is flawed, because you think you actually need to follow the bible by every word that is written in it. Your IQ should be able to produce something better then what you wrote here so far. I can hardly imagine that what you say about your studies so far is true, cause of the ridiculous statements you make afterwards. You quote from the bible and point like: here do you see all christians are evil. A bit more of your generalisations and I think I'm gonna .
It is people who are responsible for their actions and not a relegion. You think you're so much better off believing that there isn't anything more then just life? That's a relegion too. And where do you draw your limits -> homosexuality wasn't always acceptable and so was it at the time the bible was written. What is acceptable by todays standards can be not acceptable by those of tomorrow. Imagine that sex with childeren (don't know the correct English term) becomes acceptable over a few years. Books that are written now, go directly against it and our laws tell us to punish that man or woman.
What you're saying is that any relegion that describes this as a fault that should be punnished would become worthless after reaching the level of acceptence of that fault.
You say that the bible speaks of punnishable by death -> well, when you see it at that timeframe untill a 100y ago, it is most common to get that kind of sentence.

I hope you will study on, because this opinion is nothing more then the propagandistic bullshit of atheïsts who actually form a relegion themselve.

Oh yeah and about the human rights thing: You call that straight forward?!?
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. -> You can read as if you can not put someone in jail, because that is degrading. You can read as if you can give someone a lethal injection, because it is mercifull and quick.
There are a lot of blank spots in what you call straightforward.

Whether you believe in it or not, The Bible has had more influence than any other book in the history of the world. It's been studied and discussed the most with, naturally, some amount of disagreement. But there's an obvious and clear concensus on its story and its general meaning, and I find that fairly amazing.

Religious lessons are expected to apply to everyone, all the time. No other lessons are like that. Normally, we teach babies one way, teach children a little differently, teach adolescents a certain other way, and teach university students at a level that's altogether different.

People change, and not just throughout their lives. People have changed throughout history. They were simpler in the time of Jesus. I imagine some of the lessons that were appropriate then would seem odd today. I suspect the one in Matthew was one of those.

My opinion about Jesus before reading this thread was that he was probably the last person who ever lived who would ever encourage anyone to go around killing people. I still think that.

The idea that investing in alternative energy will break the system is a false one. Oil and coal are mature industries approaching their peak capacity. Investing in oil and coal creates neither new jobs nor new technology. It perpetuates a mature system that is slowly cracking apart. You don't need a lot of people to run an oil refinery. The prices of oil products and coal products are going up to around the same price as the alternatives. Also the system which uses these sources are experiencing more and more difficulties, blackouts, supply problems, pollution, and other issues.

Most alternative technologies represent new industries and new technology, both of which create new jobs. A heavy investment in clean technology would create an initial boom much like the internet boom with a variety of new technical breakthroughs, intensive investment in education, and a whole new set of jobs for workers to do. This will not happen with investment in coal and gas and in some cases even nuclear energy.

There is a whole new set of products which would come out of biorefineries, landfill gasification plants would both create jobs and cleanup the environment. New lighter weight more energy efficient products like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner could revitalize industry. Creating a hydrogen or biodiesel infrastructure while costly initially would offer change for the better in the long run.

The idea that we would lose because we are investing in new technology is a giant falsehood. This is an example of a plan which would strengthen industry, improve economies, and help end dependence on foreign oil.
http://www.oilendgame.com/

mytgroo said:

This is an example of a plan which would strengthen industry, improve economies, and help end dependence on foreign oil.
http://www.oilendgame.com/

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Impressive group of authors! I think I'd like to read that!

Pladio said:

I don't understand why people can't accept both theories ?
Isn't it possible a greater being created the concept of evolution ?
Isn't it possible the greater being made the big bang in the first place and that it slowly but surely the human race was born through evolution ?

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You have missed the point of christianity and salvation. It's strictly based on Genesis. Without Adam, there's no point with Jesus as a savior. Unfortunally many of our sciences of today are based on evolution so you kind of need it for many disciplines.

Pladio said:

I believe it's more of a book on how to behave, a book of ethics. Also many western societies have developed their laws according or following the Scriptures and its laws.
However it is a question of belief, of faith if you wish to believe in everything that happened in the book.

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There are only two reason for anyone to claim this.
Either they have not actually read the bible. If they did they would see that the bible is very different from our laws and modern ethics.
Or they have, and in that case they are scary.

Pladio said:

Do you mind telling me where you got the information about the bibel being written in 650BC ? and everything you said about the history of the bible ?
Because a lot of what I've heard and read suggests that the Bible is as close to an historic book of the periods written about in that time.

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Church have their own pseudoscience going on to keep themselves hopeful. You see, back in the days there were many scientists went down to Israel and tried to search for truth for the bible. Now many teams instead use what they have found and try to get deeper understanding on the history of Israel and Egypt. Usually archaeology works that way. We dig, then we build a story around what we find. When something new pops up, we rebuild the story. In the case of the "bible scholars" they do the opposite. They take evidence they find and try to squeeze into the biblical timeline wether it make sense or not.

You have to go to real history books regarding Israel. The fruits of the digs around there is public domain. I first got in contact with it via the internet but I bought a few books on the subject. If you want to go strict on the biblical stuff there's a 400 page book called Bible Unearthed that is supposed to sum it all up but it's 7 year old now. My books are more recent but they are in swedish. There are two documentaries on youtube you can check up. "Who wrote the bible?" is a british documentary that was shown last year on television. You can also watch the documentary version of Bible Unearthed.

This is also the kind of stuff that you will learn about if you start to study theology on an university. You do not get the church version of christianity there.

Pladio said:

Also, as a side note, for believers it doesn't matter if traces of the Hebrew people haven't been found in the desert since it could easily have been god who destroyed all evidence of the exodus.

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That kind of thinking is not even rational for a christian.

Bartacus said:

It is people who are responsible for their actions and not a relegion.

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Promising people an afterlife if they do certain things bribe them to do things they would not normally do. It's as simple as that really.

Bartacus said:

What you're saying is that any relegion that describes this as a fault that should be punnished would become worthless after reaching the level of acceptence of that fault.

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What I am saying is that the teachings of the bible is based on false background and that it is out of line with modern ethics.

Bartacus said:

I hope you will study on, because this opinion is nothing more then the propagandistic bullshit of atheïsts who actually form a relegion themselves.

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Atheism is as much a religion as anti-anarchy is a political ideology. The fact that someone have made up a word for not being part of a specific ideology is silly.

Bartacus said:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. -> You can read as if you can not put someone in jail, because that is degrading. You can read as if you can give someone a lethal injection, because it is mercifull and quick. There are a lot of blank spots in what you call straightforward.

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If that is what you have to say about the human rights fine. Just do not blame me for understanding your religion better than you do.

You have missed the point of christianity and salvation. It's strictly based on Genesis. Without Adam, there's no point with Jesus as a savior. Unfortunally many of our sciences of today are based on evolution so you kind of need it for many disciplines.

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But if god made the big bang happen he actually created Adam (which could be a representation of the human race which developed/evolved from other creatures).


By the way, I actually believe Christianity, or Catholicism to be more precise is one religion which doesn't follow the Bible as it doesn't even follow one of its most basic Principles of the Ten Commandments : You can't have a representation of god or something like that. I don't know the exact words, sorry.


So, if Adam (Adam= Human in Hebrew) did exist, and Genesis happened (not literally), then why can't both concepts be true ?

There are only two reason for anyone to claim this.
Either they have not actually read the bible. If they did they would see that the bible is very different from our laws and modern ethics.
Or they have, and in that case they are scary.

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I'm talking about the basic ethics, not the punishment for them, even though some countries do carry those punishments out.

I'm talking about the way you are supposed to treat your family, the days of resting, the part of no killing, no stealing,...
Yes, some of those ways have evolved now, but the Bible was the base of the ethics of today.



About Bible Unearthed, are you talking about the National Geographic Documentary ?

That kind of thinking is not even rational for a christian.

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Who says christians are right? Who says jews, muslims, buddhists, confucianists, hindus, pagans are right?

Maybe it's just their belief that god wouldn't do that ? But why ? He could, no ? If he was the greater being he is supposed to be ?

@mytgroo: Can't say I disagree with anything you said there. I think you answer your own question, though. From a business standpoint, an existing asset, fully developed and fully capacitized, is far preferrable to writing a big frickin check to the R&D department. It's far cheaper and has a much quicker ROI to squeeze a little more out of the equipment you already own.

Pladio said:

By the way, I actually believe Christianity, or Catholicism to be more precise is one religion which doesn't follow the Bible as it doesn't even follow one of its most basic Principles of the Ten Commandments : You can't have a representation of god or something like that. I don't know the exact words, sorry.

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There is no representation of god in Catholicism. There are of course representations of Jesus Christ, but that's not quite the same.

ISS--come back to see how your thread has mutated? I'm staying out of the now nicely boiling cauldron myself

Pladio said:

But if god made the big bang happen he actually created Adam (which could be a representation of the human race which developed/evolved from other creatures).

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More likely a defense for someone who have something to win on keeping christianity in it's current form.

Pladio said:

So, if Adam (Adam= Human in Hebrew) did exist, and Genesis happened (not literally), then why can't both concepts be true ?

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That question take the bible version for granted and discard the evidence that Genesis was copied from the older local religions that we know about today. Traces of the pagan religions it was based on is even within the bible. If you really want to get to the root of Genesis as a tale, you should read the other myths, especially Ugarit religion, atrahasis, enuma elish and gilgamesh. You will discover how Genesis as a tale grew from a rather traditional pagan mythology, not more spectacular than other pagan mythologies like northern, egyptian or greek mythology. We even have the physical artifacts of theese older religions, idols, stonework etc, where the pagan god Jehova pops up here and there.

So why not discard the existance of the other myths and mentally block yourself from that evidence? Well, first of all, Genesis do not blend with several of our key sciences. It's actually impossible to use the rather small chapter of Genesis when you begin to spend 5-10 years of your life to study what we know about the world and what evidence we found so far. Now Christian Ultra Fundamentalism use political influence to halt or stop theese sciences. This political activity to halt/stop/delay/mess with the core of several of our key sciences cause great harm to one of the key pillars of our civilization. The reason Evolution won over Intelligent Design in court was that scientists could show just how much evolution is used today and what it offers our species in terms of medical progress to help people, cure diseases, create vaccines, track criminals etc. Intelligent Design could not show anything more than a attempt to disrupt science to gain political influence. It should be a concern to you that the theory of Intelligent Design is on a chemical level incompatible with our progress in medicine. Would you like to teach biology students an "alternative" that will cause them to fumble like monkeys in a medical lab? Would you want to use a medicine that is more of a thrown together coctail than a designed drug? That is a problem and the court agreed, that's why ID was banned and that is one of the problems with "letting people believe what they want".
Only in the US this happens. The rest of the developed world do not defend their greatest strengths in court from religious interests.
It should also warn you that the US are falling behind more and more every year when it comes to education and scientific progress.

Second of all, Genesis is discrimating to women in a way that I find unexcuseable. Not even in the pagan myths that inspired Genesis, they were that degrading to "the first lady". When you distance yourself from Genesis and understand the concept of women evolving next to men, not after them, and that they never messed around with any apple, then you realise just how moraly offensive Genesis is by modern ethics of gender equality. If I ever get a girl, I will tell her to never ever let anyone tell her that she were created after men, or that she is a second class human. I will tell her that she or her family line have done nothing wrong and evolved next to men and have the same value.

Pladio said:

I'm talking about the basic ethics, not the punishment for them, even though some countries do carry those punishments out.

I'm talking about the way you are supposed to treat your family, the days of resting, the part of no killing, no stealing,...
Yes, some of those ways have evolved now, but the Bible was the base of the ethics of today.

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Jesus... family values?
He reminds some guys that god have said that spoiled children should be put to death.
His comment "For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" is well known.
Even worse, this is how to get eternal life: "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life."
He even dissed his own mother Mary when she came to visit him, basicly ignoring her prescence and telling the rest of his party that they were his family now.

Is that is the base of the ethics of today?

The "no killing" is common sense for any non christian. In fact, the "no killing" rule was in effect in Egypt 1000-3000 years prior to the first old testament were written. Would you say "no killing" is important? Then let me ask you why it's the sixth commandment, placed after laws like "Do not make any idols" and "Do not worship any other gods" and why there are tales within the bible in which they kill people who do that.

We all know what happens if you kill someone and we do not want to die ourselves. This is basic common sense. Throughout history, christians have killed many many people and tend to mess up the simple concept rather than leaving it to common sense, this because the bible ask people to kill people all the time for all stupid reasons. This is not ethic but rather the corruption of ethic behavior. People do anything when they are egoistic enough to pursue afterlife before thinking on their fellow human beings.

Finally the rule of no stealing is also common sense. Try to take a bone from a dog, then tell me from what bible he learned that stealing his bone is wrong. The bible idea of possessions is as messed up as the rest of it. Jesus is the great father of communism. Not only is he the first figure who openly give us the communist philosophy, he also lives within one of the first known communist communities there is.

Pladio said:

About Bible Unearthed, are you talking about the National Geographic Documentary ?

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http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869128

Whoever made the documentary I do not know. I think the youtube version is from history channel. My favorite book is "Den Jesus som aldrig funnits" (The Jesus who never existed), a 650 page book that dissects the entire bible to point out it's holes compared to what we already know. It's great because it always tell you the sources of the information, what museums to visits, books that go deeper into specific topics etc. That helped me to verify the information within. I simply have to visit the british museum when I can.

Pladio said:

Who says christians are right? Who says jews, muslims, buddhists, confucianists, hindus, pagans are right?
Maybe it's just their belief that god wouldn't do that ? But why ? He could, no ? If he was the greater being he is supposed to be ?

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I havnt checked up the Buddhist, Confucians and Hindus. They do not seek political influence in my world. The philosophic beauty of the buddhists make Jesus sound like a redneck, but that does not mean I feel the need to be buddhist.

I have studied and personally debunked the basis of Jew, Muslim and Christian religion.

Pagan religions are quite fun, especially when you write a roleplaying adventure. But they are obviously just attempts to give names to weather phenomenons than having any actual evidence. You can call them very early scientific theories.

You're still quoting out of context!! I've lectured and taught Ethics as well, and you display a very limited understanding of the historical complexities inherent in the subject!! Let's debate Aristotle sometime!!

There is so much I could say about religion and the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate but I'll spare you because JemyM is doing it so much better than I ever could.

Thank you for putting words, and very eloquently and systematically to boot, to all the thoughts and feelings I've harbored for years concerning the subject of religion. It has been a real pleasure (and educational) to read your comments JemyM. My hat is off to you